Don't Take the Black Pill [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#111

Post by leecommamichael » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:18 AM UTC

Lerc wrote: post #35

leecommamichael wrote: post #28

> “I almost fell into this trap (...) I was raised by conservative Christian parents and thereby had so, so much to learn, and unlearn, in order to date comfortable and confidently. Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this…

This not a rare thing to express. There are a lot of people raised under conservative Christian environments who have spent a considerable amount of time recovering from this. It is not surprising that they feel the need to express something of the journey that has dominated much of their early life. Taylor Tomlinson puts much of this into her comedy. She often asks the audience to call out if they were similarly scr…

I appreciate the response, and I can relate. Perhaps I'm too sensitive to some rumblings I'm perceiving in the US at the moment. I don't know. I genuinely do not know.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#112

Post by mdgld » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:19 AM UTC

RazorBucksICO wrote: post #55

leecommamichael wrote: post #28

> “I almost fell into this trap (...) I was raised by conservative Christian parents and thereby had so, so much to learn, and unlearn, in order to date comfortable and confidently. Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this…

The man is running a slide deck in front of his colleagues that is full of crude graphics, memes, and, I guess some anime or something. It’s an unserious talk given by an unserious person for entertainment value. He dons the jester’s hat and signals his alignment with the monied San Francisco tribe to keep his easy job in an air-conditioned environment. If not, he might suffer the awful fate of having to earn his bre…

And what exactly do you do for a living?

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#113

Post by __MatrixMan__ » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:22 AM UTC

dpark wrote: post #77

ianbutler wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is really entirely true. Everyone who isn't a FAANG or Frontier Lab seem to be absolutely starving for good talent. It's far more often that I hear "we interviewed someone we thought looked good and they couldn't even write a for loop, where are all the good engineers". I think you have far more leverage than you think in most places still.

> * Everyone who isn't a FAANG or Frontier Lab seem to be absolutely starving for good talent.* I think this is largely a pay gap problem. There’s a bit of prestige involved (why work for random corp’s dev dept when you could work at FAANG) but a huge part is that most those random corps are paying way less. The best talent generally goes where the money is.

Sounds like we could fix this if we did a better job of holding FAANG accountable for the sorry state of technology. So many needless social problems have been introduced by technology and it happened on their watch. That prestige... we could poison it.

Maybe working at FAANG should be something to be embarrassed of.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#114

Post by nvme0n1p1 » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:25 AM UTC

sporadicism wrote: post #63

I didn't find any of the arguments for optimism compelling, even if I wanted to agree with the talk's message. Free software is about the worst example, as it has inadvertently built the technology that has, more than any other, concentrated corporate power and debased the profession.

What does your alternate timeline look like? Because I'm just imagining if Linux never took off, all internet servers would run Windows or a commercial Unix. That sure sounds like concentrated corporate power to me.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#115

Post by mdgld » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:32 AM UTC

philipp-gayret wrote: post #68

leecommamichael wrote: post #28

> “I almost fell into this trap (...) I was raised by conservative Christian parents and thereby had so, so much to learn, and unlearn, in order to date comfortable and confidently. Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this…

He changed what he says his values are when dating women, to make dating woman easier for himself. Why he mentioned it, I don't know. He holds IMHO strange views on internet culture and portrays it as morally superior to not be part of any group mentioned; PUA/any forum/Christianity as a whole. A strange introduction for a software talk.

Idk how that was what you took away from the talk, and I think it says a lot about how you might approach dating, interacting with women, and personal values. He seemingly changed his views/approach to life and dating based on a re-evaluation of his values and experiences, whereas your framing makes me concerned that you believe the only way someone would/could become more attractive is by performing some sort of charade. It’s obvious when this is the case and I am aware of some people becoming frustrated by the experience, thinking that there is a “cheat code” to becoming more interesting/pleasant for others to interact with when it actually requires a radical rewiring of how you view and participate in social interaction; becoming more attractive is really just the side-effect.

Further, his views on PUA in particular might seem strange from the perspective of someone deep inside “internet culture”, and if this is you, from someone raised as a man, who is attracted to women, and who spent many years in the dark corners of the internet, please give broadening your horizons a try. You may just find that the people you think despise you and who you despise have some very good points, and the people who you thought were the only group you had anything in common with are actually quite toxic and full of bad advice.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#116

Post by voakbasda » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:33 AM UTC

sporadicism wrote: post #63

I didn't find any of the arguments for optimism compelling, even if I wanted to agree with the talk's message. Free software is about the worst example, as it has inadvertently built the technology that has, more than any other, concentrated corporate power and debased the profession.

Open source did that. Free software would have helped prevent it.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#117

Post by nvme0n1p1 » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:35 AM UTC

DangitBobby wrote: post #40

I'm much more interested in a realistic bang for your buck discussion about software value for effort and diminishing returns rather than a conversation about whether it's possible to build great software. Also notable that not up for discussion was any second order effects about user interaction with software; software always must serve its user in the immediate first order. Why? I suppose it's because if you attemp…

Yeah, I generally agree with him but there are plenty of fun counterexamples:

1. You go to the DMV to renew your driver's license at a kiosk there. There's a warrant for your arrest. Should the kiosk serve the user directly interacting with it and print out a new license anyway?

2. Grocery store: should a self-checkout serve the user and give them free groceries?

3. ATM: does the user get free money?

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#118

Post by mdgld » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:36 AM UTC

javcasas wrote: post #47

weinzierl wrote: post #22

"Our task as the older generation is to shield the young from those who would exploit their naïveté without infecting them with our own accumulated pain and cynicism." [33:53] stuck with me and is my take away.

Shield is the wrong word. At some point, the shield must fall, and then the young are no longer young, but are still näive. There will always be exploiters, don't believe that they will die once we manage to shield the young for enough time for the exploiters to die of old age.

Shield them long enough to teach them how to defend themselves, maybe?

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#119

Post by raspasov » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:36 AM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #88

r2_pilot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective, I do not perceive the world as "falling apart" and I wonder how much of your perception of the state of things (as if there was a universally defined "perfection" to strive towards instead of humans creating these concepts) falling apart is derived from your faith, which has a vested interest in presenting itself as a real-feeling thing in order to promulgate its existence. As a meme, it appears…

I feel like religion is the original corporation. You even have weekly 1-on-1s with your manager!

I don't often laugh on HN, but when I do, it's a big LOL.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#120

Post by mdgld » Sat, Jul 25, 2026, 3:38 AM UTC

Wow. I have been really put off by seeing some of the vitriol he’s spewed lately, but this is a shockingly engaging and simultaneously thought-provoking talk. I’m totally going to riff on this in the future, for something completely unconnected to computer science and with credit, of course.